


The Disgruntled Angel

by detectivejigsaw



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst, Books, Friendship, Gen, Humor, Hurt/Comfort (sort of), Loss, Sympathy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-27
Updated: 2018-09-27
Packaged: 2019-07-18 10:40:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16116701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/detectivejigsaw/pseuds/detectivejigsaw
Summary: Aziraphale has to do something he doesn't want to, and is now moping about it.Hopefully amusing, hopefully not something Mr. Pratchett would be ashamed of.  Or Mr. Gaiman, I guess, but between you and me Mr. Pratchett's approval means more (don't hurt me, Gaiman fans).  Probably pre-book.





	The Disgruntled Angel

Aziraphale was not in a good mood.  
Crowley could sense it from outside the bookshop, even from the sidewalk.  
It wasn’t that the “Closed” sign, which he often ignored anyway, was up in the middle of the afternoon on a Wednesday-that was common enough.  
It wasn’t even that the main light was off, leaving the front of the shop in a sulky darkness.  
But as he stepped out of the Bentley, he instantly felt a...sort of chill of angelic anger emanating from the door, daring anyone foolhardy enough to step inside, like the proverbial fly approaching the spider’s parlor.  
Being Crowley, of course, he walked right in.

There was no sign of Aziraphale in the front of the shop, so he wandered among the shelves into the back room-and there he was.  
He was sitting at his desk, hunched over, curled into as compact a form as it was possible for him to be. Sure enough, the anger was stronger here; Crowley could even see it a little if he squinted, in a red glowing corona surrounding Aziraphale.  
“...Angel?” he finally said aloud.  
Aziraphale didn’t even turn around; clearly he was aware of Crowley’s presence, but whatever was eating at him disturbed him far more than the demon.*  
Trying to be nonchalant,** Crowley sauntered around until he could get a good look at the angel’s face; the jaw was clenched, the lips tight, the eyes narrowed into small blue slits which stared ahead at nothing. And clenched in his right hand was a small slip of paper.

A suspicion of what might be wrong with his (definitely unofficial) friend sparked in the demon’s consciousness. Slowly he reached out, having to use both hands to pry the paper out of his grip, and unfolded it, and his suspicions flamed with confirmation.  
A signed receipt.

* * *

 

“What’d they buy?” he asked. He could have read the receipt more thoroughly, but it seemed important that he get Aziraphale to speak, instead of continuing to stare blankly ahead with that tightly-wound anger building inside him.  
“My Marlowe,” was the tight reply.  
Crowley let out a short laugh, trying to sound reassuring. “Oh, that old thing? He didn’t even get Faust’s story right-”  
“It was a _signed copy_.”  
Yeah, he’d figured it was something like that. Crowley grimaced a little.  
Then, to his alarm, Aziraphale continued, his mini corona flaring. “And he managed to get away with my second-best Milton too.”  
_Two books in one day? Oh G-oh Sat-oh Somebody.  No wonder it was hitting him so hard._

  
Aziraphale gave Crowley a helpless look.  
“I tried to stop him-but he wouldn’t take no for an answer! He said it was important, and that he’d spent ages looking for them everywhere else! And he just-just dragged them right out of their home!” He indicated the bookshelves with a wave of his hand. “That-monster!”  
“...I’m sure he’ll give them a perfectly good home,” said Crowley, despite knowing it wouldn’t do any good*** when the angel was in this kind of funk. Then, trying again, “And, you know, at least it wasn’t one of your prophecy books. Or a Bible.”  
Aziraphale only sighed and morosely took the receipt back from him, smoothing it out for the accounts; just because he was in a bad mood didn’t mean he wasn’t going to be meticulous.

Crowley felt the tiniest bit amused and/or exasperated; he knew how precious the books were to Aziraphale, but if he didn’t want to have to occasionally sell them to stubborn and persistent customers, maybe he should stop running a bookshop, for heav-hel-earth’s sake, and organize them into a private library or something. Then he wouldn’t have to have these occasional post-sale blues.  
On the other hand, he thought he understood how the angel felt. It was probably similar to how he’d be feeling if some human somehow managed to get their hands on his Bentley.**** Thinking about it like that, he just didn’t have the heart to give any kind of lecture or teasing, both of which were his usual go-to options for the angel.

Finally he stepped a little closer to the desk and kind-of-sort-of leaned his hand on Aziraphale’s shoulder in a way that he totally didn’t intend to be comforting, at all.  
“Sorry, angel.”  
Then he asked, in his most placating tone, “Want to get a drink?”  
Aziraphale sighed, and ran his hand through his curls.  
“Please.”

* * *

 

*Of course, by now many things disturbed him far more than this particular demon. Still, it bothered Crowley to not even be greeted by a “Hello, dear boy.”  
**It was a rare occurrence for Aziraphale to be in nothing less than a, dare I say it, angelic mood, and whether he admitted it or not, the demon disliked it being otherwise. Having certain patterns in life was important, after all.  
***Not that he wanted to start going around doing good, but you know.  
****Of course, the circumstances would be somewhat different, because anyone foolhardy enough to covet the car would practically have to pry it from Crowley’s cold dead fingers, and since he was more or less immortal, that would be next to impossible; and in the unlikely event that they managed to get hold of it without killing him, they would have the demon hunting them down, with all the unrighteous wrath at his disposal, most likely before they had even gotten a block away.

**Author's Note:**

> Thoughts?


End file.
